What Really Happens When You Finally Shift Into a Parasympathetic State

Why You Feel Worse for Relaxing, and What You Can Do About It

In a world of conflicting opinions on most matters relating to health, there is a strong consensus on the importance of the parasympathetic nervous system and the need to spend sufficient time in a parasympathetic state. This is a state whereby the vagal nerve is actively supporting a relaxed state and investment in health-promoting activity, which is why this state is often dubbed ‘rest and digest’ (and sometimes referred to as ‘tend and befriend’). 

Modern civilization provides a heady cocktail of stress, stimulation and distraction, the combination of which makes it difficult to drop out of the ‘fight-and-flght’ sympathetic dominance and enter the parasympathetic state that is so coveted. It therefore follows that there is plenty of content available on the benefits we can expect from dropping into parasympathetic, with such advice providing numerous angles on how to elicit such a state. Guidance here focuses on managing life stress, slowing down, undertaking the ‘inner work’, limiting inflammation and supporting energy availability (as well as the addition of extra steps that stimulate the vagus nerve directly, such as cold exposure, humming, gargling, and even vagal nerve stimulation devices). It can also relate to the use of calming herbs or supplements.

However, amid the elusive search for the parasympathetic state, very little consideration is ever provided to what it feels like to transition from a long-term sympathetic dominance into parasympathetic. The result is that many individuals find that, once they do see such a shift, they are often surprised that it doesn’t feel anything like they had expected.

But first, let’s take a moment to focus on the physiology in question.

What is the Autonomic Nervous System? Role of the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Branches

The autonomic nervous system, as the name suggests, acts beneath the level of consciousness. Based in the brain stem, its central purpose is to coordinate changes in physiology to balance out the dual-but-opposing needs of the human metabolism to both defend itself and to maintain repair and homeostasis. Because both types of activity require energy expenditure, the autonomic nervous system is essential to determine the most appropriate use of limited energy resources to best support both survival and health. It does so through two branches; the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches.

The sympathetic branch induces changes in physiology that ready the system for emergency action. It helps activate parts of the brain involved in scanning and detecting threats, while also increasing heart rate, dilating the airways in the lungs and inducing the release of fatty acids and glucose (to better ready the individual for action). As part of this response, it reduces blood flow and metabolic activity in non-emergency functions (such as digestion and various parts of the brain) and releases higher levels of adrenaline; this response creates an stimulates a spike in alertness, tunes our attention outward and activates circuitry known as the Task Positive Network (which helps us tend to the problems in hand). It also involves reduced activity in a key part of the brain (ventromedial prefrontal cortex) that processes emotions, and a spike in endorphin release that provides a numbing effect.

Sympathetic activity is not undesirable in itself (indeed, it is an adaptive response to challenging situations) but living in a permanently sympathetic state can lead to anxiety, insomnia, stress-induced illnesses and general disrepair in the body.

Meanwhile, the parasympathetic branch also operates unconsciously to control bodily functions. It promotes relaxation, energy conservation, and recovery after stress (hence the reference to ‘rest and digest’ that we noted above). When activated, the parasympathetic nervous system slows the heart rate, increases intestinal and gland activity, and relaxes sphincter muscles in the gastrointestinal tract. This response is essential for maintaining homeostasis and supporting overall health.

The interplay between the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the nervous system are mediated by the vagus nerve. Also known as the tenth cranial nerve, it originates in the brain stem and innervates almost the entire body (and the term ‘vagus’ is derived from the word ‘vagrant’ on account of the way it is a ‘wondering nerve’). The vagal nerve can be considered an energy management system for the body, in that it uses its efferent (inward) nerve fibres to continually assess the energy status of the body and, in accordance with the information it receives, uses its afferent (outward) fibres to permit energy investment into non-emergency tasks. Vagal signalling also acts as a break on sympathetic activity, which would otherwise ‘steal’ the energy towards defensive activity.

The most basic summary of the autonomic nervous system is that it controls where energy gets invested in the body. This puts it at the top of the tree when it comes to influence on how we feel, perform and communicate.

Transition into Parasympathetic Dominance: Reality Check

The above should make clear why, when any individual has lived for years in a sympathetic dominance, our primary aims focus on transitioning into parasympathetic. However, it is important to note that, if this state has been out of reach for sustained periods of time, this transition will almost always represent a challenge.

The most important principle that we should bear in mind here is how, given the unparalleled impact that the autonomic nervous system has on metabolic activity in both the body and the nervous system, we can always expect potent changes in cognitive performance but also in how we feel (and what we feel).

This can be a smooth transmission. But often it is not. A rule of thumb is that, the longer someone has lived in a permanent state of sympathetic activation, the harder the shift will be.

Here are the most common patterns.

Challenges Associated with Shifting into the Parasympathetic State

Pattern 1: “I’m so Tired and Hungry”

A very common question I am likely to receive here is whether it is normal to feel so tired and so hungry. To which I point out that there is a good reason that this state is nicknamed ‘rest and digest’!

I also point out that these patterns are normal and healthy, and relate to the underlying fatigue and hunger than anyone will face as a result of sustained activation (characteristics that are no longer masked by high adrenaline activity). This normally requires no action beyond satisfying the adaptive demand for extra sleep and plentiful food, although there are times when the level of brain fog will be overwhelming.

When this transitioned is accompanied by particularly poor cognitive performance, this is most commonly due to low dopamine activity. Dopamine is responsible for multiple functions in the body (including muscular relaxation and hormonal balance) but is central to executive function, attention, mood and motivation.

It is particularly relevant that adrenaline can kinda-sorta compensate for many of the behavioural effects of dopamine. Both neurotransmitters allow for alertness, although adrenaline does so in a more activating, ‘spikey’ manner. While dopamine tends to motivate us towards the good, adrenaline motivates us away from disaster; consequently, there is still a sense of motivation. In short, we only get to see the true impact of low dopamine activity when the adrenaline is removed.

An Organic Acids test can provide us valuable information on dopamine metabolism, both in showing low dopamine activity (which tends to especially benefit from DLPA/Tyrosine/Vitamin C, but also from Rhodiola, Ginkgo and Green Tea) and dopamine conversion issues. The latter pattern paradoxically sees the dopamine metabolites in the high range, demonstrating that there is no such supply issue but instead a shutdown of dopamine firing due to a build-up of an unhelpful metabolite (8-hydroxy-dopamine, formed through excessive oxidation of the dopamine itself). I mention this because this pattern is worsened by haphazard dopamine support (and instead benefits only from steps to limit the oxidation, an action provided by Rhodiola, Ginkgo and Green Tea, or from steps improve conversion, which often relates to low copper or interference from bacterial metabolites). Hence the call to test before throwing in dopamine support as a knee-jerk reaction.

Pattern 2: “Everything hurts”

This pattern has a similar genesis to the first, in that it occurs because of a drop in adrenaline. As we touched on above, adrenaline is a hormone that impacts heavily on where our focus goes, to the extent that we no longer notice pain. We see this caricatured in films, where the protagonist engages in battle and then only afterwards discovers that they have been seriously wounded during the action.

Away from the big screen, this tends to result in us noticing aches and pains that were not bothering us previously. Some of this results purely from the absence of society’s favourite numbing agent (adrenaline) while some of this is due to the immune system now being permitted a sufficient share of the energy supply to start conducting tasks on its to-do list (which naturally results in inflammation).

In most cases, this pain is self-resolving over time; evolution has rewarded the development of pain signals in that, as long as no emergency is in play, these provide us with an unmistakable cue to stop doing whatever it is that is causing the pain; this can relate to a local pain (which cues us to rest the joint/muscle in question until repair is complete) or an ‘efforting’ pain (so-called as it sees brain activity converge at the same zones that are responsible aversion, and induced to force us to scale back our 14-hour workdays or other commitments that are unsustainable).

As such, tending to these challenges are generally simple, although not necessarily easy. Examples here tend to relate to the central/’efforting’ pain; consider those with large mortgages (and the workload to go with them) or those who again need to bring in an income while also facing the inescapable sleep deprivation that often comes alongside having young children. Such predicaments call for creative solutions (although it is important to note that there has almost always been a solution available).

There are times when we see local pain (eg. knee pain) in individuals who feel destabilised without daily workouts and, consequently, will inevitably find themselves in a quandary (see Pattern 3). There are other times when the pain is located in one particular place and has no connection to physical usage (in which case, see Pattern 4).

Pattern 3: “I feel more stressed than I did before!”

This one is complex but, being that it is extremely common, also well worth understanding. Strap in.

One of the less commonly discussed aspects of the parasympathetic response is the role of increased sensory transmission. As we touched on above, high-stress states have a powerful effect on shutting down emotionality; as mentioned above, this involves reduced activation in areas of the brain that process emotion, a spike in numbing endorphins, a switch away from ‘reflective’ modes towards ‘doing’ modes (namely, the Task Positive Network vs the Default Mode Network, discussed below) and a powerful shift in attention (which is likely the biggest player in these events. This is highly adaptive, as it would not promote our survival to dwell on some friction at last week’s family gathering while the arrows are flying.

Of course, there are costs to this evolved response. Anyone who has lived in a sympathetic (high adrenaline) state for long periods of time is highly likely to accumulate a huge ‘emotional debt’, which relates to the sensory signals that have been stored in the implicit memory networks of the brain. The nervous system does this whenever a) we are subject to environmental inputs that it needs to make sense of, but b) our resources are diverted elsewhere (eg. dealing with the challenge). This elegant system allows us to determine the ‘meaning’ of various stimuli at a later date – when no longer engaged in resolving a threat - so that, next time it is encountered, we can launch an adaptive response on a reflex basis. This can be summarized as making sense of what happened; on a neurobiological basis, what is happening here is that the memory (and the sensory signals associated with it) are being transferred into the explicit memory network.

 This network centres on re-experiencing the sensations within the prefrontal cortex but is dominated by the hippocampus. It allows more emotional granularity (contextualizing the potential threat by recognizing when it may require a physiological response but, most importantly, when no such response is needed). The laying down of these ‘logs’ in the reflexively inhibit the stress response the next time this particular blend of sensory inputs is received.  In short, the prefrontal cortex generates an experience of these sensory signals and this allows the hippocampus to update the out-of-date reflexes and marks this sensory blend as ‘safe’. No change in physiology occurs the next time we encounter these sensory signals and we go on to experience the sensations as emotions (be that joy, anger, fear, excitement, sadness, etc) for a short while and then go on with our day.

This is neuroplasticity in action, where we are updating the Pavlovian associations our system holds (and, thus, updating our reflex responses that occur in response). However, problems arise when either a) there is a huge debt (aka a large amount of sensory signals stored in the implicit memory network), b) the sensory signals trigger an overwhelming response (seen after a traumatic event).

In these scenarios, we get a Catch-22 situation. While we have described above how the system can update its reflex responses through introspection/reflection, it cannot do this during a state of emergency (sympathetic activation). The problem arises because, if there is sufficient unprocessed sensory content to trigger a massive stress response, this stress response will then both numb the individual to the signals, thus blocking any attempt to process it (aka transfer it from implicit memory network into the explicit). In other words, our out-of-date reflex response to the signals puts us in a state of stress and this state of stress stops us from updating these reflexes.

This is almost always what is happening when individuals talking calming herbs/supplements or take cold showers and find themselves ‘feeling like shit’. They are in a limbo state whereby the parasympathetic activity is permitting an emergence of sensory signals, enough to impact on emotional responses, but the reflexive stress response that follows blocks such signals from breaking through to awareness. What’s crucial here is that, although such states haven’t reached awareness (in the prefrontal cortex), they have now activated the amygdala, responsible for generating emotional states and the body’s response to emotions.

While there are lots of individual nuances, the general pattern on the frontline is that we have a bad mood but are not aware of why we are feeling this way. Sometimes we will tap in on one emotion but not others (becoming tearful if we have access to sadness, flying off the handle easily if we are not blocked off from anger). It is understandable that we might conclude that ‘Magnesium wrecks my mood’ or ‘Licorice makes me angry’.

It can be summarized that, as long as this set-up remains, the only choices we have is physiological stress from the emergency (sympathetic) state or emotional stress from dropping into parasympathetic (post-emergency). While I would normally hesitate to generalize, it feels fair to say that our societal norms mean that most people are entirely familiar with living in an emergency state and prefer this to the highly unfamiliar stress that comes with the post-emergency condition (familiarity allows for accurate prediction, and this removes a huge energy burden from the system). This is why we may often see individuals that are objectively ‘dead on their feet’ - suffering from all manner of metabolic burdens, terrible sleep and a legion of symptoms caused by disrepair – who set their alarms in order to commit to another gruelling workout ahead of a punishing day at work; they will feel more ‘normal’ and find themselves more productive for the additional sympathetic activation induced by a heavy workout.

This situation can be resolved by permitting the nervous system to update the out-of-date reflexes, something it is entirely capable of (but not while the Catch 22 situation continues to play out). Hence, our first focus is on breaking this cycle.

Conscious Connected Breathwork is ideal for this purpose (as are other forms of controlled hyperventilation, which include Pranayama, Transformational, Holotropic and the Wim Hof technique). This approach alters the carbon dioxide levels of the bloodstream in a way that inhibits both the brain stem and the default mode network.

Why are these effects so important? The inhibition of the brain stem allows us to avoid the usual reflexive change in physiology, one that would normally involve pumping out of adrenaline and blocking the sensory signals from reaching awareness (arriving at the prefrontal cortex). The default mode network is our ‘background scanner’ that operates at rest; specifically, it has an antagonistic relationship with the Task Positive Network, meaning that when this action-based circuitry rests, the Default Mode Network becomes active. Its job is to constantly survey both the inner and outer signals for inputs that it ‘knows’ require action, recruiting the amydala when it finds something that it ‘knows’ to be a threat or something that requires action.

One key point here is that the scans undertaken by the Default Mode Network include the contents of the implicit memory network (aka content that is ‘stored in the body’). Thus, anyone with lots of stored content in the implicit memory network will find that, any time that they rest – specifically, when they stop doing active tasks (which includes processing information, whether that be household chores, responding to emails or scrolling on smartphones) – their Default Mode Network can now connect with the stored content and, via the amygdala, hijack physiology to best prepare us for the predicted threat. It is particularly relevant that, in trauma/PTSD, the brain stem commandeers the function of the Default Mode Network. This triggers the hijack in physiology outline above (but in a way that also leaves us numb and unaware of what caused such a shift, leaving us simply to feel ‘bad’ and ‘on edge’).

Thus, we are left with the dilemma that perhaps best captures the zeitgeist; our choices come down to living in an emergency state (and look on as our bodies gradually develop ‘mystery’ symptoms due to ongoing disrepair) or to stop and rest (and feel the intolerable sense of agitation).

At the core of this dilemma is the brain's reliance on past experiences to inform its reactions to stress. The ‘alarm centres’ take centre stage here. The amygdala, a key player in the emotional processing center of the brain, stores memories of fear and threat. The brain stem stores a ‘log’ of when it should hijack physiology to better prepare for an incoming threat. When faced with a similar situation, they can activate the stress response even if the original threat has long since dissipated. For example, a person who previously experienced a traumatic event may react with anxiety to situations that remind them of that incident, even if those situations are benign (with the brain stem inducing a more numb-but-activated state, the amygdala producing one that sees us more emotional/fearful).

Conscious Connected Breathwork therefore stands out as a well-suited option in that it both temporarily inhibits both the brain stem and the Default Mode Network (respectively, the driver and the catalyst of such problems), doing so in a way that allows us to bring content into awareness and update the out-of-date associations that are at the base of these maladaptive response. 

It's work noting that there are far more valid options that may be helpful in these scenarios. As examples, these include Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, Psych-K, IFS/Internal Family Systems and plant medicines. Traditional talk therapy, which naturally leans heavily on combing through content we can consciously access, has very rarely seen the desired resolution (although it feels important to acknowledge that it has regularly provided insight and understanding, which can at least help avoid ‘secondary anxiety’ – the anxiety that comes from being anxious and not knowing why – and can provide a useful platform to engage in further steps).

Pattern 4: Tension (aka Unexplained bloating / headaches / muscular tightness and pain)

This is ultimately a different (but related) expression of Pattern 3 we discussed at length above. The underlying drivers are indistinguishable, but what we experience is driven by neuromuscular tension, aka ‘body armour’.

Most of us can intuitively identify with the role that tension plays when we are close to overwhelm. An example I often give is to recall a particularly stressful drive we may have once had (imagine driving on icy and winding roads, late at night, in the midst of stormy weather), one where there is real and present danger of a crash. How often do we give in to the fear that inevitably accompanies this process? How often do we even feel fear while intensely concentrating on the task in hand? In comparison, how often do we then finally arrive at our destination, get out the car and then stand up and notice the ache in our legs and back?

Thus, armouring is an entirely natural (and often helpful) process. But problems can occur if this is overly deployed or becomes a permanent set-up. Symptoms may naturally vary, but reliably confirm to where the tension is found. Tension in the neck reliably induces headaches. Tension in the diaphragm normally results in a desire to burp alongside bloating and general digestive discomfort (that remains regardless of what foods are excluded). We may often develop acute pain in any joint that has been subject to the sustained pull from the muscle in question. Depending on the location, we may see clear relief from chiropractic adjustments or sports massage yet, sure enough, it returns the following day. Such ‘mysteries’ are both painful and frustrating.

Yet it need not be a mystery. A focus on ‘body armour’ is present in many traditional healing systems which, while often using different terminology, overlap in how they match treatment to the cues provided from the body’s postural patterns. This sits in heavy contrast to Western medicine’s obsession with treating complaints as multiple-but-separate ailments. Thus, traditional approaches may cultivate curiosity as to the connections between, say, the appearance of tension in the neck and underlying stress buried in the system (when did this appear? did this correlate with changes in the external or internal environment? when is it worse and what factors are present at these times? when has such tension appeared in the past? can a message be taken from this?). Conversely, allopathic practitioners are likely to add a further diagnosis to the list and provide medications to block the pain (to add to the anti-depressant for mood, ACE inhibitor for blood pressure, Omeprazole for heartburn, etc).

It is clear that modern healthcare’s current infatuation with Evidence-Based Medicine – an approach that systematically seeks to eliminate any sentiment, in a profitable-but-futile quest for total objectivity and quantifying the ‘true effect’ of interventions – results in an approach without the capacity to recognize the role of body armour, something that the paradigm can only do when inputs can be quantified and measured via randomized controlled trials (both impossible in the case of neuromuscular tension). However, a body of neurobiology research weighs in on the matter. One fMRI study highlights how muscular tension alters the way that the insula acts, blocking the way it would usually induce stimulation and agitation. Another fMRI study showed how the basal ganglia, a zone of the brain used to tense the muscles ahead of action, switches off the Default Mode Network (a focal point in our discussion of Pattern 3, above).

With this in mind, it is not surprising that approaches that address this pattern tend to resemble those described in Pattern 3. However, the frontline experience for the individual plays out in a different way, in that the initial aims centre on removing the armour in order to permit sensory signals to travel through the nervous system uninhibited (which both temporarily cause the discomfort described above, but also allows for signals to arrive into the prefrontal cortex; this is where they then can be experienced and more adaptively ‘logged’ , the process necessary to update the out-of-date associations in the alarm centres that initiate such challenges in the first instance).

And it is therefore not surprising that the approaches mentioned above – notably Breathwork, but also Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, Psych-K, IFS/Internal Family Systems and plant medicines – all stand out as useful in these circumstances, with more body-centred approaches (such as TRE/Tension Release Exercises, Neo-Reichian therapy and yoga) also showing reliable benefits in these scenarios.

Summing Up

No-one argues that a state of parasympathetic dominance is key for good health and resolution of long-standing symptoms. But, despite the consensus on the importance of allowing our system to drop into a state where we can feel relaxed/present and can commit sufficient resources to repair tasks, there seems to be little discussion on overcoming the obstacles we are likely to face when in transition, and how feeling wired after tending to a known shortage is not actually the ‘bad reaction’ that it appears to be.

I hope that the above makes it clear that encountering challenges at this time as far from uncommon, but also why there are numerous dependable options we can deploy in these circumstances (albeit we will never see a one-size-fits-all protocol for adjusting to this state).

Nuances

• I've described the transition as occuring in response to calming herbs/supplements. This is only for the sake of simplicity and easier reading (in that these are the items that most commonly cause this transition), but it is important to point out that ANY item that supports energy signalling can permit a shift into a parasympathetic state. This includes mitochondria- and energy-related supplements (in fact, these are often a cause of such challenges) but also chiropractic adjustments and adjunct therapies (such as acupuncture, etc).

• again in the interests of easier reading, the way I have discussed the four patterns above makes it sound like individuals tend to proceed without any issues, or will encounter one of these four patterns. The reality is much less orderly and we will expect to see one dominant pattern at any one time, but one that may intermingle or shift as they progress

• it is also the case that my wording might imply that the individual sees a shift in autonomic state – eg. their HRV figures shoot up – and then they notice these challenges, while their system sits patiently in a parasympathetic state as they tend to the issues that bother them. Its worth noting that they are much more likely to ‘flirt’ with this parasympathetic state, consistently drifting in and then bouncing out, until their system settles in this place (hence, taking regular HRV readings would frame them as someone that is ‘stuck’ in sympathetic, when the reality is a lot more dynamic/wavering).

• I have also discussed the transition into parasympathetic as if it is a black-and-white switch. This too is for simplicity, as there is always a spectrum that we move through (shades of grey) when transitioning to one state or another

• I have referred to parasympathetic dominance above as akin to the desirable ‘rest-and-digest’ state (also referred to as ventral vagal state). There is also another parasympathetic response that we encounter, dubbed ‘freeze’ state (and also referred to as dorsal vagal state). Both are states of demobilization; the former because the system has no need to mobilize on account of having all the resources it needs, the latter because the system sees no purpose in mobilizing on account of the demands far outweighing the available resources. I will do in future writings but I have not included discussion on the ‘freeze’ state in this article, although it is heavily under-discussed (and very common in individuals with chronic/complex illnesses).